Man fined RM500 for unlawfully keeping money from an investment scam

SIBU: A man was fined RM500 by the Magistrate's Court here on Wednesday (Jan 5) for unlawfully possessing RM3,000 in his bank account from an investment scam.

Muhammad Iylia Shahmi, 27, from Kuching was charged under Section 37 (1) of the Sarawak Minor Offence Ordinance 1958 which carries an imprisonment term of three months and a fine of RM500.

According to the facts of the case heard before Magistrate Syukri Mokhtar, a 25-year-old engineer had on June 13 last year got acquainted with a woman on a social media app going by the name of Tan Tan.

The woman identified herself as a staff member of an online shopping platform and offered the engineer a job of taking photos of the company's products and sending them to her.

However he was asked to invest in the company which offered a 5% return.

The engineer later made a total of 22 transactions to seven bank accounts involving a sum of RM72,219.

He however felt he had been cheated when he did not receive the dividend as promised and was unable to get his money back

Following a report lodged by the engineer, the police managed to track down the accused who was one of the suspects.

The accused paid the fine.